


Rainbow Soap Bubbles

by Chromi



Category: One Piece
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Banter, Comedy, Drinking, Drinking & Talking, Drunkenness, Established Relationship, Everyone's gay, Gen, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, NaNoWriMo 2020, Pointless, Silly, but that's really not the focus of this fic, in that Ace and Deuce are together, literally its just Isuka chilling tf out and having a good time
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:27:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27459451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chromi/pseuds/Chromi
Summary: During her vacation on Sabaody, Isuka definitely does not decide to interrupt Ace and Deuce's night to attempt to arrest them again, despite not being on duty.She also definitely does not then join them in a tavern, nor does she drink the night away in the company of pirates.Definitely not.
Relationships: Masked Deuce/Portgas D. Ace, Portgas D. Ace & Masked Deuce & Isuka
Comments: 13
Kudos: 40





	Rainbow Soap Bubbles

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thecayenneknight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecayenneknight/gifts).



> Very, very overdue, and absolutely, beautifully pointless nonsense. This is my chance to study and learn Isuka's character and relationship with Ace and Deuce, and to let her have some fun. I love the idea of the three of them being friends - I think she deserved to have that. I guess you could almost call this a character study - in fact, chapter two very much _is_ a character study, lol.

Sabaody was a noisy place at night.

Once the sun dipped low in the sky, the archipelago turned from soft pastel dreams to raucous, dazzling neon. Bars opened; restaurants called in the hungry with offers and free first drinks; taverns spilled live music from their doors, beckoning in the lively and excited seeking to blow off steam.

A land of dreams, it may well be called by the extroverted and jittery. A place of nightmares, the introverted of the world would likely label it, cowering away in fear of the noise and heaving bodies, the fights and the yells and the brays of laughter spraying out into the streets.

For Isuka, though, it was somewhere in the middle. Not quite the promised land coveted by many in her team, and certainly not the quieter, homely sorts of places that she herself was more comfortable in (workplace and various jobs not included). It held the promise of fun, yes, and plenty of it, but perhaps not quite of the brand that she would have outfitted herself with, personally.

It was only day three of the vacation that had been forced onto her – or rather, more respectfully, day three of the vacation that had been _suggested_ she embark on by her superior. _You need a break_ , he had said, fingers laced together beneath his stubbly chin, elbows bent to mahogany desk and surveying her with a kindly, almost fatherly warmth. When she had protested, he had pressed on to say, _that isn't an opinion; it's an order, Isuka. You've been working too hard – you're days away from collapse. You_ must _take leave and relax._

The threat that followed – one of denying her access to the base should she turn up for duty despite her enforced leave – still rang in her ears, coupled with the drunken yell of a pair of middle-aged men staggering into one of the dirtier-looking taverns opposite to where she stood stock still shrouded in shadow. She wouldn't put it past her superior to actually follow through with his words, so she had done what was demanded of her and booked herself in at the nicest hotel her wages could afford on Sabaody, the destination chosen with care and precision of the likes that had raised more than one eyebrow when she had been asked where she was heading to. Even her marine ship had been banned during this break, resulting in quite the tantrum on her part.

With a snort that transformed into a sigh, she leaned back against the grubby wall behind herself and, tilting her jaw to watch her staked out entrance down her nose, folded her arms in tight to her sternum.

She had chosen this spot with deliberate care, deeming it the most likely scummy holes in the vicinity to be of attraction to her silently pursued quarry. It was one of the noisier, rowdier of the taverns south of the enormous Ferris wheel; the perfect hotspot for degenerates, pirates, and fools alike. As she watched, a pirate – for there was no possible way he was anything _but,_ just from the look of him – launched himself out through the doors, grabbed at the wall, and vomited spectacularly all over the floor.

 _Disgusting_. She felt her lip curl as she watched the pirate's buddy crash outside too, take one look at his morose friend, and then double up in heaving laughter.

But these two inexcusably drunk pirates were not who Isuka was waiting for, and were certainly not the reason why she had decided to forego dinner at a substantially more upmarket part of Sabaody. There was method in her madness, and skulking around the back alleys and dingy streets housing who knew what types of threats was all part of a greater, many-month-long journey that had become too personal too quickly.

She had seen them not 15 minutes ago, the two pirates who had caught and held her attention like no one else she'd ever crossed paths with. Or, rather, only one of them had, though his companion was seldom seen anywhere but at his side, driving Isuka to find herself labelling them _both_ as her primary targets by default. Fire Fist Ace and Masked Deuce, the captain and first mate of the Spade pirates, had exploded out of a surprisingly reputable bar as Isuka had been passing by in search of somewhere to have dinner, Deuce grabbing Ace by the collar and pulling him along mere seconds before a red-faced man in a waistcoat had charged out after them, screaming incomprehensibly. They hadn't noticed her, luckily – and in fact hadn't noticed much of anything, judging by how both had collided with several members of the public during their great escape, yelling their apologies – but she had certainly seen _them_ , and her predatory instincts had been successfully piqued.

No, strictly speaking, Isuka wasn't here to arrest them. She wasn't even here to tail them, document their movements, or lay in wait as a spontaneous trap, ready to spring.

She had definitely picked Sabaody for its glittering soap bubbles, for its wonder and magic and all things delicately beautiful. She had definitely _not_ picked it because she had wrangled the Spades' latest known heading from a terrified subordinate before she had left base to pack her bags. She also hadn't raced to the archipelago at the speed of light and then (badly) pretended to be surprised to see the Piece of Spadille docked, waiting for coating.

No. Not at all. This was all a happy coincidence, and Isuka was fully intent on filling her vacation with relaxing things like fine dining, long strolls, and absolutely not trailing after two rookie pirates.

Come to think of it, she still wasn't entirely sure whether she _could_ arrest them while off duty... but that was a problem for later, when she had them cuffed and locked in a cell. Act first, ask questions later, right? At least in situations like this.

As if on cue, she now spotted her pair of pirates as they rounded the corner into the street, Ace waving a skewer of meat that he definitely hadn't had when they'd left the previous bar, Deuce talking animatedly with his hands. Whatever it was that had him gesturing and grinning like that had to be deeply engaging, for Ace was listening intently, brow creased into a frown of concentration. As Isuka watched, drawing herself into the shadows as much as physically possible, Ace burst into brilliant laughter, showering the street with flecks of meat.

For the briefest of moments, Isuka questioned (not for the first time) _why_ she was so fixated on him; he was repugnant, and effortlessly so, and that bothered her without the reason being altogether clear. Given he was a pirate, there wasn’t exactly a good standard of behavior that Ace (or Deuce, for that matter) was expected to live up to, yet sometimes, Isuka found herself believing there was more to him than met the eye. That was, until he did things like this, shattering any illusions she might have held regarding class and social grace.

As the pair drew closer, their riveting choice of conversation managed to float over and above the cacophony of boisterous bellowing in the street, enlightening Isuka.

“There's no way he did that,” Ace was laughing, chewing on the skewer in blissful ignorance of the daggers that Isuka was glaring at him, “there's no _way_ he would have.”

“Say what you like,” Deuce said, grinning, “but it's true, seriously – Skull heard him, too. I've never heard Mihal say anything bad about anyone; you should have seen Skull's face, Ace, it was _hilarious._ ”

“Why? What’d he do?”

“It was something like—”

Isuka rolled her eyes at the exaggerated impression Deuce pulled of their crewmate, though not before she caught sight of Ace throwing back his head in peals of laughter yet again. How drunk _were_ they already? There was no way they were sober. Isuka frowned to herself and glowered at them. Oh, she was going to arrest them so hard, they had no clue what was coming for them. None at all. She sure hoped they enjoyed their stupid stories and awful imitations while they could, because by the end of tonight, they wouldn't have a damn thing to be hooting like monkeys about.

As much as she was loath to admit to it, though, that sort of friendly, careless banter was something to be admired, in a sense. Something that she lacked with her co-workers and subordinates, and something that she envied of the pair.

Why was it, she asked herself without expecting a decent answer, that pirates seemed to have more fun simply approaching a tavern than she had ever achieved in her life? It was almost rude – inconsiderate, even – of them to be so brazen about it, rubbing their carefree lifestyles in the faces of the less socially inclined. She had friends, of course, yet on witnessing the shouts of Ace and Deuce’s laughter, the casual touch to Deuce’s shoulder, the bump of a forearm to Ace’s… those friendships felt weak. Superficial. Fake.

Ah, but that line of thinking was venturing dangerously close toward wanting to _join_ the two young men in their nonsense. With a little shake of her head Isuka put it out of her mind, unfolded her arms, and marched across the street after the pirates, following them to the entrance of the homely-looking tavern.

“How about here?” Ace said, surveying the tavern with the same intensity of a wine connoisseur regarding a fine rioja. “Reckon they'll serve that beer you like?”

“Only one way to find out,” Deuce replied, hands on his hips and foot jutting out, “shame that bar didn't.”

Ace hummed his agreement, seemingly perfectly unaware of the frowning ensign quickly approaching him and his partner behind their turned backs. “Yeah. Also a shame that they caught us trying to bolt out the bathroom window, huh?”

“You can't blame the owner, though,” Deuce pointed out fairly, “he had every right to drag you back in by the belt. We really should stop making a habit of skipping out on paying; I still feel bad about it, no matter how many times we do it.”

“Next time, don't come back for me,” Ace said seriously, casting a stern look at Deuce, “you got out – you shoulda stayed out. There’s nothing brave or honorable about getting your jacket caught on a bathroom window, Deu, while tryin’ to break back _into_ the place you just escaped from. And also,” Ace raised his voice and turned on his heel so quickly, so unexpectedly, that Isuka, now barely feet from the pair, stopped short in her tracks, startled.

Menacing twin grins curled on the pirates' faces, and, from their rather significant height advantage, their teeth flashed dangerously sinister to Isuka's eyes. “It's rude to creep up on people in these parts of town,” Ace continued, pointedly raising his eyebrows at her.

“Almost as rude as glaring at them from the shadows, I'd say,” Deuce added, positively leering down at her, ignoring her splutter of indignant confusion.

“Sneak up on the wrong people like that, and you'll find yourself in a whole load of trouble,” Ace said gravely. “Far better to take the head-on approach round here, we've found.”

The temptation to question just _how_ they had discovered this was side-stepped, a more pressing matter requiring Isuka's immediate attention.

“You knew I was there?” She demanded, feeling her cheeks heat up with embarrassing ease. She had been caught out, exposed, and was now being goggled at by the pirate who had vomited in the street as if _she_ were the idiot out here making a scene of herself. “How?”

Ace shrugged, flicking away the now bare skewer stick. “Felt ya,” he said with something not unlike triumph, tucking his thumbs into his belt loops. “Like, I felt your presence, somehow,” he clarified when Isuka opened her mouth in scandalized horror, “but Deuce actually saw you. You're not very good at hiding, are you?”

She hadn't seen them communicate that piece of shared knowledge. She had been watching them since the moment they had turned into the street, and she hadn't seen anything to suggest they had picked up on, or conveyed between one another, the fact that she was stood right there. It was a little unnerving to try to rationalize their methods of communication, her mind leaping to impossible explanations like telepathy in the space of a heartbeat.

“Maybe she wasn't really trying to hide?” Deuce suggested, though that insufferable smirk he wore betrayed the fact that he knew damn well she had been. “Maybe she was looking for some company but was too shy to ask? Sabaody's a lonely place on your own, if you're not into sharing a drink with strangers.”

The audacity of such a ridiculous idea made Isuka laugh a derisive little sound, rolling her eyes before fixing Deuce with the meanest, hardest look she could muster. How dare he? As if she, a dedicated, diligent marine ensign, would ever stoop low enough to go seeking the company of the two men she had set her sights on bringing to justice?

It didn't matter if she privately thought they were rather funny together, bouncing off each other with ease as they did, Deuce frequently taking the role of the exasperated when really, under the sighs and irritated grunts, there lay real, genuine fondness for his whirlwind of a captain. It didn't _matter_ that, had life gone differently and the two had wound up as marines alongside her (perish the alternative; the one that found _her_ as a pirate in their crew, perhaps), she would have almost certainly made every effort to befriend them properly, maybe even going so far as to comfortably refer to them as _her boys_ one day...

“In your dreams,” she snapped, burying that happy little snapshot somewhere deep within her, “I'd rather socialize with any number of drunk civilians than the pair of you.”

“That could be arranged,” Ace said mildly, looking to the door of the tavern where music and joyous screams leaked out into the street.

“We're getting off track,” Isuka said shortly. Pulling herself up to her monumental height of five feet, Isuka cleared her throat, adopted her most authoritative tone, and announced, “Fire Fist Ace, I am hereby arresting you for the crime of piracy. Masked Deuce, likewise. You are both to come with me to Vice Admiral Dorrow's ship where you shall be detained until further—”

“Can _you_ see any cuffs?” Ace interrupted, pointedly staring at Isuka's hips where one might expect to see a pair or two dangling from the belt of an on-duty marine, “'cause I sure can't.”

“Nope,” Deuce replied, folding his arms, “she doesn't have any on her, unless she's hiding them somewhere you don't wanna be going. She's on vacation, isn't she? That’s what she said yesterday.”

“Then how's she gonna arrest us?” Ace asked, flatly ignoring Isuka's squeal of outrage, the way she took a step back from them and their falsely searching stares. “She can't honestly think we'll obediently follow her back to some marine ship like good little boys, can she?”

“I hope not. She can't be _that_ deluded.”

“Didn’t you say yesterday that she implied she _couldn’t_ arrest us while off duty? Y’know, after I left you two to get cozy up in the—”

“Stop talking as if I can't hear you! That's _extremely_ poor manners!” Isuka barked, balling her fists, seething with incensed rage at the smirks the two pirates exchanged. Although, really, what kind of manners was she expecting from pirates who avoided capture in the first place? “You will come quietly and avoid making a scene, _pirates_ , and you will do so right now.”

Truthfully, she didn't expect this tactic to work. When, to the best of her knowledge, had a criminal ever accompanied the law into custody on solely being verbally demanded to do so? It was absurd, and perhaps she _was_ a touch deluded after all, for even as the sentence left her mouth her mind very unhelpfully whispered the snide question: _and what, dear, was the point of that?_

Because Ace snorted. And then so did Deuce. And then, as if they were the tide and the moon pulling and pushing waves and synchronous harmony alike, they were suddenly laughing hard enough to cause tears to bead in their eyes. Not mean, cold laughter – but rather laughter that, had it been directed at anything other than her and her stupid demands, might have been soothing like balm for a fraught soul.

Next thing she knew, though, Ace was slinging an arm around her shoulders, tugging her into his side with as much ease as if she were a child rather than the threat she ought to be regarded as.

“You're right,” Ace said cheerfully, completely ignoring Isuka's furious cry of protest, not at all happy with finding herself draped in Criminal, “that was really rude of us. We're sorry. How about, as an apology, we buy you a drink and treat you to a few laughs of your own?”

They had been planning this. They had absolutely, definitely planned for this to happen from the moment they had noticed her lurking like some kind of stalker (and, by definition, she fit that bill quite nicely). To them, Isuka was clearly no threat, a fact that was rubbed in by Ace quite happily chiming, “isn't it _nice_ to meet up with friends and have a couple'a drinks?” as he steered her through the double doors, deaf to her (admittedly) feeble objection.

Inside the tavern, chaos of the precise brand that Isuka had imagined reigned supreme. Any vestiges of orderly conduct had long since vanished along with the mid-afternoon glow, leaving only the beer-stained, the bellowing, and the disorderly at barely eight in the evening. A fine mist of smoke hung webbed through the air, spiraling from pipes and cigarettes dangling from thin lips aplenty, their owners braying laughter at their fellows over cards and drinks.

In the corner, nearest to the bay-windowed front on the left, blared the musicians and their various ensemble of instruments. Though they carried the tune with practiced ease, as Isuka watched in bemused wonder one would occasionally pause to swig at their tankard, or else rip a mouthful of food from their plates.

A fight was taking place right at the feet of the musicians – two stocky men rolling around, fists swinging to match the most awful insults hurled at each other – yet not a single patron stepped in to stop them. On the contrary, their grunts and yelps of pain only seemed to fuel the performers on into livening up their tune, coupled with the onlookers shouting their drunken advice and bets on who was going to win.

Feeling remarkably out of her depth, Isuka sucked a breath in through her nose, leaning into Ace’s protective embrace a little more than she might have wished to admit to. It was here, grudgingly warmed by his presence, that her gaze followed his other hand rising to meet the curve of Deuce’s back in front of him, caressing downwards to slide along his spine a couple of inches. The soft, almost achingly tender flash of a smile over Deuce’s shoulder didn’t go amiss, either… and nor did the spike in Ace’s body temperature as a result.

How interesting. She hadn’t known he could do _that_.

“I don't recall ever agreeing to befriend a pair of pirates,” Isuka, in an attempt to keep the upper ground – desperately trying to retain the charade of belonging in this smoky, sweaty world – snorted over the bellowed demands for drinks, the blaring music, the screams of drunken laughter, allowing Ace to guide her up to the bar despite whatever venom she was attempting to inject into her words. When he pulled out a barstool with a ripped seat covering for her, she hopped up automatically, snarling defensively at Deuce's satisfied grin on her right.

“And we don't tend to make a habit of welcoming marines into our inner circle,” Deuce said, taking the barstool beside her, “yet here you are, a rose between two thorns.”

“Who're you callin' a thorn?” Ace pouted, swinging a leg over the stool on Isuka's left. Deuce ignored his comment, though a small, intriguing smile played about his lips as Ace waved for the barkeep. “That's what Deuce first said to me before he became Deuce. Did you know that?” Ace said to Isuka, seemingly perfectly unaware of how cryptic this sentence came across.

When neither showed any indication of elaborating on what was meant by _before Deuce became Deuce_ , Isuka ventured, “that you're a rose, too?” pulling a face, but Ace laughed.

“No, that he _doesn't liaise with pirates,_ or whatever fancy word it was, and that we weren’t friends. But look at us now!” He lunged across Isuka over the bar, tucking his hand into Deuce's atop the wood. “Totally inseparable! I don't know where I’d be without him!”

“At a guess, you'd be snoring in a cell somewhere, still clutching the food you didn't pay for from the vendors who dragged your narcoleptic ass into custody in the first place,” Deuce sighed with a certain kind of fond exasperation, Isuka couldn't help but notice.

Her gaze was drawn to and held atop their hands, interest piqued by the way Deuce's definitely squeezed Ace's back, his thumb drawing lazy, almost inconspicuous circles to the backs of Ace's fingers. Realization came for her then, eyes widening with sudden, perfect understanding.

For months – for as long as Isuka had known of the Spade pirates, first hearing whispers of a rookie captain with a bounty that _surely_ had to be a misprint – there had been rumors circulating. These rumors focused on the relationship of captain and first mate; rumors that were generated by their reactions to threats posed to one another, concluded from their general demeanor when interacting. Some regarded the rumors with curiosity; others rolled their eyes and dismissed them, saying that the love lives of teenaged pirates were of little interest to anyone other than said pirates. Isuka, meanwhile, hadn’t believed any of it, assuming it to be nothing but gossip springing from merely observing two young men who deeply trusted each other, as was usually the case when romantic speculations materialized out of thin air.

Now, however…

“C'mon, what're you drinking?”

Deuce’s question was pointedly aimed at Isuka, Ace's order certainly something already learned by heart, and it cut off her abrupt epiphany. Up close like this and crowded in between them, Isuka was once again forced to recognize just how _big_ they were compared to herself, how they dwarfed her so entirely despite being only around a foot taller than she. Their presence was staggering, and she was somehow awed by them.

Forget being a rose between thorns; she rather felt more like a mouse between lions.

And she wasn’t settling for that. Not at all.

“Scotch,” she said firmly, and, when Deuce leaned in to hear her over the noise of the tavern, she rolled her eyes and repeated herself. “ _Scotch_. On the rocks.”

She leaned away to better glare at him, waiting for the smirk, the knowing look in his eyes, and for the question of _really? A lady like you?_ A response she had become well acquainted with after many such conversations with older, more learned marines. Truthfully, no, she didn’t like the liquor in the slightest, but little displays of a more mature leaning (such as ordering _adult_ drinks over something softer) would surely, in the eyes of the powerful and intimidating, grant her better standing. It was the little things in life that added up to paint the picture she wanted to project; the choices she actively made in her portrayal not of a girl, but a capable, sophisticated woman instead.

The expected reaction, however, did not come. Neither did the demand to know her age, as many of the older marines often felt they had the right to know – but then again, laws changed depending on location, and pirates were hardly known for caring about laws in the first place, now were they?

Instead, Deuce nodded once, gently released Ace’s hand, and waved for the barkeep again, Ace’s attempt at summoning the bearded man seemingly going unnoticed.

For a moment, Isuka frowned at him, waiting for it. For the challenge. Then, snapping round to Ace on her left, she studied his expression also, yet soon had to relent and admit that she was looking for something that didn’t exist. He grinned at her, giving her the impression that he was waiting for her to say something rather than the other way round.

“I don’t want to interrupt anything,” Isuka grasped for something – anything – to say, eyes following Ace’s hand to come to rest under his chin.

“You aren’t,” he smiled, “you’re more than welcome here.”

“You were invited this time,” Deuce added, drumming his fingers on the sticky bar counter. When Isuka snorted a disbelieving sound, he added, “that counted as an invitation.”

“He's still moody 'cause you ruined our date yesterday,” Ace explained, grinning at her bemused expression. “You interrupted me taking his Ferris wheel virginity – he's never gonna let that go.”

“Could you _not_ phrase it like that?” Deuce sighed, cheeks tinging pink as Isuka spluttered, hand going to her mouth, “that implies all kinds of horrific things I'd really rather not imagine.”

“I'm so sorry!” Isuka exclaimed, recovering swiftly from Ace's choice of words, “I hadn't realized it was a date—” so she'd been _right_ , “—I would have left if you'd told me—”

“No, you wouldn't have,” Ace laughed incredulously, nudging her in the shoulder, “you were there to arrest us, remember? Would you have really turned around and left if we'd said _'sorry ma'am, we were hoping to spend the next half hour sucking faces, so would you mind leaving us alone before you start yelling about throwing us in jail?'_ Yeah, didn't think so.”

On her right, Deuce's face dropped into his gloved hands with a deep, pained sigh, and Isuka – against all of her better judgement, her beliefs, her unwavering motivation to see Ace brought to justice for his crimes – _laughed._

Head back, eyes squeezed shut, _laughed_.

And honestly, thinking about it, Isuka couldn't remember the last time she had done that.

Perhaps for tonight only, she could allow these two to truly give her a few hours off and away from Isuka the Marine, and grant her the chance to be no one and nothing but _Isuka._ No titles; no expectations. No guilt to be found, challenged, and ultimately owned by. Guilt grew when nurtured by one's own habit of feeding it, of allowing it to gorge on learned behaviors and the expectations of others dragging down a soul so battered and bruised already. Freeing oneself from those chains, if only momentarily, gave Isuka the chance to breathe deep and whole for the first time in memory.

She would deal with the guilt when it found her in the morning, wrapping around her like something cold and dead, rotting her happiness and suffocating her whimsical fantasy of befriending her enemies.

Tonight, though, she laughed until she cried, wiping away her tears as her glass of scotch was set down in front of her by the grizzly barkeep.

With a slap on her back that jolted her forward, Ace yelled over the upswing in chaotic noise around them, “so you _can_ laugh! Great!” He held up his own tankard of beer and thrust it at her, foam slopping over the side. “Here's to friends! To drinking! And to a night off from having a stick up your ass!”

She could only laugh an indignant, untruthfully offended trill, bumping her glass to his pewter. She’d been accused of that before – many times, in fact – yet for some reason it stung a little sharper when someone as carefree and liberated as Ace pointed it out.

“Don't push your luck!” She warned. “I've not given up on arresting you when I'm on duty. _Both_ of you,” she added, swiveling to knock her glass to Deuce's tankard too, “you can't expect to change my beliefs with a couple of drinks.”

“No, but we can help relax them for a few hours,” Ace countered before subsiding into silence, drinking deeply.

“My superiors would kill me if they saw me right now,” Isuka sighed, swirling her scotch around the glass, glancing longingly between the men’s tankards of beer. “Dorrow's here too, like I said yesterday, but he's probably back on his ship.”

“I don't think you have to worry about a vice admiral stumbling into somewhere like this,” Deuce said, inclining his head toward the men who had been tangled in a fist fight. Both had tankards of their own in hand now, one bleeding from a cut above his brow, the other from his lip, arms around each other's shoulders and quivering with laughter. “Not exactly his kind of scene, I'd imagine.”

 _Nor mine_ , Isuka almost said, but took a sip of her drink instead. It burned, as it always did, all the way down to her stomach, and she had to work to keep her expression neutral, as ever.

“Are you staying on his ship, too?” Ace asked.

Isuka scoffed, running a hand through her vermillion hair. “Absolutely not,” she said briskly. “While I respect Vice Admiral Dorrow more than I can express, I can’t say the same for some of those under his command. Besides, I really _am_ on vacation; it’s just that when he mentioned coming to find you to offer you a position among the Warlords, Ace, I volunteered to do it myself.”

“We assumed that was a lazy coverup story,” Ace grinned at Deuce over her head, and when Isuka whipped round to shoot him the same frown she had pinned on Ace, she found him looking rather amused, too. “We thought it was kinda weird how you ended up vacationing right where we were headed.”

The report on the Spades’ heading again flashed through Isuka’s mind, but she shoved it down under a sip at her scotch.

“Coincidence,” she mumbled, sure they wouldn’t hear her; one glance at each revealed her hopes to be dashed.

“Well, here’s to _coincidences_ ,” Deuce said, raising his tankard and slamming it to Ace’s, who happily proffered his own, “and to ensigns who drink with pirates.”

Would they drink to and celebrate anything?

Watching him in a sidelong stare, Isuka couldn’t help but marvel at the change in Deuce’s character. Yesterday, he had been terrified of her – there was no kinder way of putting it. On finding herself shut in the gondola with the pair, Deuce had very clearly tried (and failed) to act as though he was as perfectly at ease in her presence as Ace (genuinely) had been, yet his distress had been only too obvious. The fidgeting; the nervous glances everywhere but at her; the biting of his lip and the rigidity of his spine – they had all indicated that had the ground swallowed him up in that moment, Deuce would have thanked it for its blessing.

Yet tonight, he was like a different person. Had she been an outsider watching their trio, she might have believed that Deuce was her long-time friend, and a good one at that.

As the conversation subsided into light-hearted digs and a general back-and-forth of good-natured jibes between the two pirates, Isuka swirled the lump of ice in her glass, listening, learning them on intricate levels she had only ever entertained with fleeting fancy.

“Okay, but next time you want to sleep with the window open, you’ve gotta be prepared for the possibility of Kotatsu climbing through it and joining you,” Ace was saying, clearly under the impression that climbing through windows was a routine thing to find crewmates doing. “He doesn’t always wanna sleep with me, whatever you might think. Sometimes he wants some Deu Love.”

“That’s fine – I can cope with _Kotatsu_ coming in; but last time I was woken up to find _Skull_ dangling halfway through the window.”

Ace threw back his head and shouted his laughter to the rafters, shaking with the force of it. Even Isuka snorted, clamping a hand to her mouth to stifle herself, the mental image of the broad Spade pirate stuck in a porthole one that was irresistibly funny. Catching the eye of the barkeep, she waved him over to order another round, determined to get herself some of the beer that dripped from the bottom of Ace’s tankard.

“That’s not okay, Ace,” Deuce yelled over Ace’s continued laughter, “that’s _horrifying_. Have you ever woken up in the dark to see a wheezing skull floating through the gloom? Scared the shit outta me.”

“Yeah, everyone heard you screaming like a demented five-year-old,” Ace grinned, “I think Saber will hear you ringing in his ears right up ‘til his deathbed.”

“You’re not going to get me to apologize; it’s not _my_ fault Skull’s sense of humor is so banal.”

“Don’t you two share a room?” Isuka asked without thinking, looking from Ace to Deuce. The surprise on their faces made her flush, directing her gaze resolutely back to the barkeep, who had taken her orders over to the bar taps. “Sorry, I didn’t mean—I just figured— I thought you were togeth—”

“Deu’s room doubles up as the medical bay,” Ace said, “and he’s had it set up like that ever since we got the Spadille. It’s better for him to be right there among the pills and bandages and whatever, just in case someone gets hurt in the night.”

“Ace snores,” Deuce said bluntly, pointedly ignoring the look Ace shot at him, “so he gets his own room. No one wants to share with him.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Ace frowned, leaning in with a staged conspiratorial whisper, “it’s the _captain’s_ quarters, every ship’s got them. That’s why I don’t room with anyone else.”

“Keep telling yourself that,” Deuce sighed dramatically, taking the new tankard of beer from the barkeep when he returned, “but I can hear you through the wall, dude, you’re like a beached walrus in there.”

Oh, they were just too obvious. They couldn’t hide it, neither of them – couldn’t hide the quiet longing cloaked behind their innocuous jabs. If she had to guess, their sleeping arrangements were not something they had discussed… but were something that both had been privately thinking about rather extensively.

Isuka worked hard to keep the satisfied smirk off her face as she took her drink – beer this time, too, her pretences having relaxed somewhat – and dug into her bag for her money.

“No, don’t do that,” Ace said at once, taking out his own wallet, “we’re treating you – put your money away.”

“You told me you were broke!” Deuce snapped at once, leaning around Isuka to better fix Ace with a furious glare. “You had me pay for dinner because you said you’d blown your allowance on more of those Grasen crackers!”

“Did I?” Ace asked nonchalantly, not seeming the least bit perturbed. “Oops.”

“You have an _allowance?”_ Isuka asked, mouth agape, as Ace paid for the round. “Like a kid?”

“Deuce said I had to go on one,” Ace pouted, raising his beer to his lips, “since I keep spending it all on stuff and then getting into trouble when I can’t pay for meals and stuff. Agreeing to it was the only way I could get him to give my wallet back to me; he was holding it hostage, y’see, which is _mean_ , Deuce, y’hear? Mean! Even Isuka thinks so!”

Isuka laughed again, her cheeks hurting – and then her chest, too, squeezed into breathlessness as Ace lowered his tankard to reveal a spectacularly foamy beer moustache.

“Are all pirates as ridiculous as you two?” Isuka asked, running a thumb under her eye to catch the escaping tear.

“Nope!” Ace beamed. “We’re two of a kind!”

And wasn’t that just right?

The evening continued in this vein, two drinks becoming four, four becoming eight, and suddenly, three hours later, Isuka had to refuse yet another when offered, already well and truly past her usual limit. Her decision to allow herself to indulge in a single drink with them before insisting she departed was long forgotten, left behind somewhere with the lies she told herself of them being untrustworthy and awful. The longer the night went on, the more difficult it became to focus on much outside of the pleasantly warm thrum buzzing through her, the noisy, smoky ambiance of the tavern one that now felt familiarly comfortable rather than foreign and hostile.

Ace and Deuce, however, showed no signs of slowing. In fact, the more they drank, the livelier they became, laughing and talking more exuberantly with each drink they drained, banging on the bar to summon the barkeep back with alarming frequency. Isuka, too, had peaked three or four drinks back, laughing wildly at tales of Ace’s insane childhood (he had grown up in a _jungle_ – a _jungle!)_ and even, when prompted by a comment from Ace, petting Deuce’s hair, remarking loudly on how soft it was.

Now, however, she was slumped in her seat, one blazing red cheek pressed against her folded arms, smiling contently underneath the petty argument that ranged overhead. Something to do with some book of Deuce’s – she couldn’t yet figure out if it was one he was reading, or writing – that he kept getting pissy about letting other people see. Ace, apparently, didn’t see the problem with the other members of the crew wanting to have a look, whereas Deuce kept insisting that it was _private_ and _not for them_.

“But if you wanna publish it one day,” Ace practically shouted, waving his ninth tankard in a wide, foamy arch, “people are gonna read it, Deu! You can’t keep a published book a secret, can you?”

“That,” Deuce pointed at Ace dramatically, Isuka saw on cracking one bleary eye open, “is _differen’_. It’ll be finished then, an’ not full of crap.”

“It’s not _full of crap_ already, babe,” Ace said, tone switching to something tender and sincere so suddenly that Isuka was quite sure she’d slipped into a dream, “it’s wonderful and really, _really_ fun to—”

But he was cut off by a long-suffering moan from Deuce, dropping his face into his arms folded atop the bar, much like Isuka. “ _You’re_ not meant to read it, either!” He wailed into his jacket, voice muffled, as Isuka snickered. “It’s full of—you’re not supposed to see all that!”

“Full’ve what?” Isuka slurred. With immense effort she reached out, patted Deuce’s elbow, and added, “I’m sure it’s _great_ , don’t worry.”

“It’s the _best_ ,” Ace insisted, slamming down his tankard and spraying Isuka with beer, “like, _the best_ thing I’ve _ever_ read in my _entire_ life. It should win the grand prize of Best Book in the Universe, Deu. Look, Isuka thinks so too, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Isuka agreed with a giggle, despite never even seeing said book’s cover, never mind its contents, “I can assure you it’s the bestest book since forever.”

It took a disproportionate amount of effort to calm Deuce down following this, as he burst into tears and sobbed into his arms, moaning something about being good enough for Ace after all. Ace, in an honest attempt at sweetly comforting his partner, slid off his barstool, slipped, righted himself by leaning heavily on Isuka’s shoulder to a grunt from her, and then flopped across Deuce’s back, draping himself over him.

“I love you,” Ace sing-songed into Deuce’s hair, covering him like a gigantic cat, “I looove youuu Deuuu.”

“Me too!” Isuka joined in enthusiastically, grabbing for Deuce’s arm again but finding Ace’s instead. Ace pulled her in, her barstool leaning precariously on two legs as she was tugged to her right, wrapping her in blissful, delicious warmth, squeezing her between the two men in a drunken sandwich.

“Ah, young love,” the barkeep grunted, setting three shot glasses down in front of them and pouring a clear spirit that Isuka couldn’t recall them ordering into each, “such a great thing to see, blossoming in ‘ere. We don’t get many like you three – it’s usually just rowdy idiots like…” he gestured widely to the rest of the tavern, though none of the trio followed his broad wave, “so it’s nice to see you kids havin’ fun.”

“Thanks,” Ace beamed lopsidedly, brandishing a thumb up at the barkeep. He supported himself across Deuce’s shoulders, something which seemed like a tremendous effort in his drunken state, and he leaned in to the barkeep, tugging Isuka along with him. “I’m not _meant_ to be loved by no one,” he said far more seriously than was surely required, eyes out of focus and heavily lidded, “but here I am, bein’ loved like crazy. S’not right, is it? But it damn well makes me stupid-happy.”

“I getcha,” the barkeep nodded sagely, although whatever it was that he got, Isuka sure didn’t follow.

Maybe it was the incredible amounts of alcohol she’d drank, but that sentence didn’t make the slightest bit of sense to her. Deuce was a pirate, too – there was nothing wrong with pirates loving each other, was there? Now, if Deuce had been a civilian and Ace a pirate, then _maybe_ she could see where he was coming from, given the critical social differences, but—

“People like us ain’t meant for relationships,” the barkeep continued, and when Isuka managed to raise her face enough to meet his eyes, he winked at her. “An’ yet somehow, we went out into the world and found the only fool crazy enough to want us jus’ as much as we want them. Fate, my missus says. Damn good luck, I call it.”

“My name’s meant to be good luck,” Ace poked himself in the cheek to demonstrate who he was referring to, just in case there was any doubt, “but his,” he petted Deuce’s hair under him, quite ignoring how Deuce sniffled, “means bad luck. Didja know that? I had _no_ idea – he told me. I was like, _‘wow, so we cancel each other out’_.”

“Precisely,” the barkeep agreed with a nod.

Isuka gave up. Their conversation didn’t make sense anymore, and she vaguely wondered whether either of them was really grasping it, either. With a _thunk_ she dropped her forehead to the bar top, the world spinning too much to care that it was sticky and covered in crumbs. Ace, however, didn’t let go of her, keeping a firm grip around her shoulders while practically lying on top of Deuce, who Isuka couldn’t tell was still conscious or not anymore. Ace was warm, and she was sleepy, quite abruptly finding herself open to the idea of passing out there on the counter, precautions and general safety be damned.

Wasn’t it peculiar how she felt safe with these pirates?

Isuka sighed heavily through her nose.

No, it wasn’t peculiar. Not at all.

“You’re a lucky man,” she heard the barkeep growl; felt Ace move with a vigorous nod in agreement.

Honestly, after getting to know them a little better tonight, she wholeheartedly agreed, too. As far as she could recall, she had never known a couple who genuinely _liked_ each other as much as Ace and Deuce did. They worked, and they knew that they worked, and that was a thing of beauty in Isuka’s eyes.

“Your girlfriend’s quite the catch.”

Everything spun as Isuka raised her face, forehead smarting where she peeled it off the wooden surface. Fixing the barkeep with the best possible steely glare she could muster with her eyelids drooping as they were (and knowing with utter certainty that her mascara was smudged under her eyes, too), Isuka challenged, “who’s his girlfriend?”

Taken aback, the barkeep nudged one of the shots toward her in a laughably placating manner. “Are you not?” He asked tentatively, perhaps terrified by her outraged panda impression.

“Sorry, but I wouldn’t date him if he were the last person alive,” she said with finality, jerking her head in a stiff nod.

“Woah, hey, hold on a minute,” Ace said, snapping onto the defensive immediately. His warmth was missed as he released her, choosing instead to rally his only ally and heave Deuce up by his shoulders, holding him possessively to his chest despite how Deuce groaned dramatically. “The hell is that supposed to mean? Isuka? I thought we were friends?”

Compassion inspired by the hurt written across his freckled features caused Isuka to soften, reminding herself that just as she hadn’t known about his relationship with his first mate, he too couldn’t possibly know certain details about her.

“I don’t mean just you,” she said, massaging her forehead, “I mean—”

“All pirates?” Ace cut in, clinging to Deuce as if he were a particularly drunk life raft out in dangerous waters.

Deuce, for what it was worth, vaguely patted Ace’s muscular arm strapped across his collarbone, mumbling an indistinct, “you tell ‘er, Ace,” in support.

“No! That’s not what I’m tryin’ to say.” It really was quite amazing how offended Ace was getting over this. Isuka rolled her eyes with a snort, which, apparently, had been the wrong thing to do.

“Then what?” Ace frowned. “What do you know about me that’d make life alone at the end of the world so much more bearable than being with me?”

“It’s not _you_ , it’s _me_ ,” Isuka giggled at the cliché line, prompting a scathing, disbelieving sound from Ace. “It _is_ ,” she insisted, laying a hand to his upper arm like one may attempt to calm a rather distressed pony, “you’re lovely, but—”

“But?”

“I don’t like men, romantically or sexually.”

Silence from the three met her, stunned looks from the barkeep and Ace sparkling at her under the hazy light of the many candles strewn around the tavern. Deuce offered a faint, “great,” although Isuka highly doubted he was following the conversation at all at this point.

“I’m a lesbian,” Isuka clarified with deliberate emphasis on every syllable, finding intense delight in how Ace’s bloodshot eyes grew wider and wider, “and you are _not_ to my tastes, I’m sorry to say. So stop getting offended and drink up.”

Ace took the shot glass she handed to him with a sort of numb disbelief, staring at her as if he was only now seeing her clearly for the first time in his life.

“I knew it,” he whispered at last, gaze trailing along with her hand as she knocked back her own shot of what turned out to be sambuca, “I _knew_ it.” He whooped with laughter, jolting Deuce against him and making Isuka and the barkeep jump violently. “I _knew_ you were the same as us!” He laughed, jiggling Deuce in his arms and earning a sharp groan in miserable protest. “Didn’t I say so, Deu? D’you remember? That’s _so_ cool. D’you have a girlfriend? You’re really great, so you _must_ do. Is she a marine, too? She wouldn’t be a pirate I guess, but, oh, maybe she’s someone from back home? What’s she like?”

As Isuka lapsed into giggles under Ace’s intense questioning, the barkeep lined up more shots on the counter, declining their money when both Ace and Isuka thrust fistfuls of notes at him. This, he told them, was better than any entertainment he’d ever had to pay for, so it was on the house.

The trials and tribulations of the wasted pirates and the marine, slumped together on the counter.

**Author's Note:**

> And with this submission, I've now published over 500,000 words on AO3 😂✌🎉 
> 
> I love chatting, so feel free to send me a message on either [Tumblr](https://chromiwrites.tumblr.com/) or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Chromiwrites)! I'm always open to requests and chatting about these guys!


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